Cat's Eye Carving

Breckenridge Snow Carving Championship.

What an amazing experience. I have only flown to Norway and Jersey before so a flight halfway around the world was a daunting prospect.

Our flight changed in Iceland which from the air and coming into land is truly beautiful, iceflows and enormous river deltas no Northern lights sadly either out or back.

We were able to follow our journey and see what we were flying over and when the clouds cleared I was able to see the ice flows around the Canadian coastline, I’m pretty sure I could see walrus’s!

As we were travelling back in time 7hrs we followed the sunset and landed in Denver in the dark. There were mounds of snow but it wasn’t cold. The air was very dry and I found myself thirsty all the time and being a mile high, the air was thinner.

Our team captain had hired a car and once we had shoehorned our luggage and the four of us in we set off for downtown Denver. Thankfully my googlemaps helped us find our way to our hotel, The Curtis an interesting pop art themed hotel, very nice but they were redecorating the floor we were on so I’m sure it will be even nicer when they finish.

We decided to find somewhere to eat as we needed to stay up to break the jetlag. There was a great diner just across the road and they had everything on the menu it was endless. The food was great but I wouldn’t be able to have a good cup of tea until we got home!

We’d all been awake for about 24hrs by this time and I couldn’t stay up any longer unfortunately I woke up at 4.30 am so sleep was going to be an issue and so thirsty.

On Sunday Ollie took us to a stop I had been dying to go to The Boot Barn! I bought cowboy boots and a new straw hat. The clothing there was amazing and the boots went on for miles. After this we went on to Red Rock and amphitheatre built during the Hoover administration to help people during the depression. the men were paid  money which was sent home to their families and they were given food and a place to sleep. Music festivals are still hosted here and there have been some incredible concerts here.
The sky was so blue, the colours were intense but the air was even thinner up here and climbing a normal set of steps made me feel like I had never climbed stairs or exerted myself in any way. Catching my breath was a challenge and this did not bode well for the onward journey another 5000ft up into the rockies.